24 November 2011 12:41 PM

1 in 4 people spend more time on-line than they do sleeping. Sounds like an under-estimate to me!

SIR, madam, I implore you, put down the mouse, step away from the computer and go to bed!

It seems that we Brits have been over-indulging in our favourite pastime, that of being on-line, and a new survey claims that 1 in 4 people spend more time surfing the internet than they do sleeping.

Shocked? I‘m still reeling!

Judging by a thoroughly unscientific head count that I have just conducted among my friends and colleagues I would expect the tally to be far higher. Perhaps, even, a full house of four out of four.

For the truth is, the internet has not just revolutionised our lives but it has steered them into new social waters entirely - and not everyone is happy about this.

The poll, courtesy Sky Broadband, claims that 51 per cent of those surveyed admit to suffering from ‘e-anxiety’ if they are unable to check their emails or Facebook page for any extended period of time.

In addition to these findings, it also appears there is a gender bias, too, with men marginally outpacing women with the time spent on-line.

Ever since the World Wide Web rumbled out for mass consumption in the eighties we have been hooked. I know I have.

I do practically everything online. Banking, grocery shopping, purchasing books and clothes, arrange coffee and dinner dates and social network with friends from around the globe from Bradford to Brazil.

Being a journalist, I feel I have some excuse for the vast swathes of time I spend on-line, not least because my work requires I do so, but there is only so much justification any human can decently have.

Some nights, sitting in front of my screen, as my bleary eyes and weary head droops ever closer to collapsing onto the desk before me, I wonder how another day has passed with barely a pause to do the school run or feed our famished dog (you can always tell when she’s hungry because she’ll start carrying her bowl around in her small little Westie mouth).

I am sure people are muttering under their breath at this precise moment at how prophetically Orwellian much of our human existence has become where we spend whole days and nights glued to a flickering screen.

Is it true, though, that to accompany our on-line habit we have also become detached, isolated and automaton through excessive use?

Personally, I would say no - although I know others who would fervently disagree - and, if anything, the internet has broadened my social experience.

Through the various networks I use - primarily Facebook and LinkedIn - I have re-acquainted with long-lost school friends and work colleagues and I have even been traced by a half-brother and half-sister from my father’s previous marriage. I have also made friends who are invaluable to the quality of my day-to-day life.

Surely on those aspects alone, opportunities that were unavailable to me before the net, it can’t be all bad?

Others, of my acquaintance, will go even further in their defence of the Great Goddess World Wide Web and proclaim her (mine is female) to be a veritable lifesaver.

Four of my friends are all but housebound due to various disabilities and sickness and the internet has proved to be an absolute God-send for them.

Trying telling them that their pursuit is an unhealthy one and they are likely to do unmentionable things to you with their mouse pad.

That's not to say, of course, that us net addicts couldn't do with being separated from our keyboards every now and then, because we could, but the pull is so strong.

And, of course given the sheer vastness of the internet, we are going to encounter unpleasant scenarios on it.

Statistically, it is impossible for everything to be 100 per cent perfect, but I still believe the good outweighs the bad on the web.

Fact checking, for example, is all but pointless as there is no over-arching editing taking place and consequently many people can, and do, put up all manner of nonsense.

Even the so-called knowledge authorities like Wikipedia can be altered by Joe and Joanna Public and there’s no saying how accurate or honest the information supplied is.

Equally, the net can - and does - act as a shield for the most astonishing acts of cruelty and cowardice.

We’ve all heard of the suicides that have resulted from on-line bullying, particularly among teenagers. By far and away the most grotesque of these incidences involve people who literally die on-line, their webcam capturing their demise, as a worldwide audience has been known to egg them on.

Indisputably vile, certainly, but there are always going to be social oddities who behave in ways far removed from the norm. I believe it is counter-productive to taint all the good that the internet has to offer just because there are bizarre and certifiable people who also use it.

I, myself, have been subjected to a great deal of abuse on-line. I have had hate mail and death threats sent to my website but by far the most frightening experience occurred about seven years ago.

My daughter Shaye, now 14, has grown up around a computer - I have pictures of being on deadline and breast-feeding her as I worked, needs must and all that - and she is no stranger to the web.

So it was, one pleasant Sunday afternoon, that she decided to do a Google search for Mummy. She input my name and the screams that followed said it all.

My daughter had found herself on a hastily designed website that depicted me being decapitated. I think that would serve as a shock for anyone not least a child curiously exploring the world and how their parent fits into it.

Trying to get the site removed was a whole other story - I did eventually - but the details are so lengthy and tiresome that I shan’t bore you with them.

Then there are the internet trolls. These people tend to score highly on the sociopath scale. Typically, they are social outcasts who find a new rhyme and reason on-line.

They dedicate huge amounts of time leaving bullying and vicious messages, often to bereaved people, and they will go out of their way to distract and obstruct campaign groups with their mindless and meaningless barrage of foolishness.

Earlier this year I set up a cause group for social justice on Facebook and was astonished by the level of vitriol that spews from the keyboards of some people.

One troll who entered our group took up three hours simply by posting insulting messages - which I frequently, and stupidly, got drawn into - and once they have caught you in their web of response and retaliation they have won.

The only advice with anyone suffering a troll like this is to ignore them. It’s the attention which serves as oxygen to their grubby being.

Of course when it becomes untenable - as in the case of Sean Duffy, 25, from Reading who targeted two grieving families by mocking the deaths of their children - then the police have to become involved.

Thankfully, Duffy was jailed. Perhaps that will give him some time to mull over his obscene on-line activity.

So, yes, there is a dark side to the web and we must work constantly to uphold certain standards so as to ensure that our online experience is as safe and pleasant as possible.

But I, admittedly, remain a fan.

One of my neighbours detests the internet. He is in his 80’s and he worries that it will prove to be a dark and divisive force. We frequently banter about the future and where our virtual lives may lead.

Last week, during a particularly excitable exchange, he said to me:

“You want to be careful. One day you will wake up and find that the internet has replaced everything you do from going out to the true friendships you have. What will you do then?“

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SONIA POULTON

Sonia Poulton is a journalist, broadcaster and mum. She is fascinated by human interest, social issues, psychological matter and cultural phenomena.
As a former music journalist she media tutored and named The Spice Girls and she recently completed a Psychology degree ("because I wanted to understand myself more"). Sonia is a amateur astrologer who enjoys being thrashed at squash by her teen daughter, dancing to pop videos, helping a local wildlife rescue centre and walking her West Highland Terrier, Bliss in the Cotswold countryside. Her long-lost brother and sister recently found her on Facebook. She deplores laziness, procrastination, bad manners, bigotry and PC-behaviour. She is inspired by human kindness.